Categories: Need to know

Employers may discriminate against job seekers with non-English names

UBC study finds applicants with foreign-sounding names get fewer interviews

by macleans.ca on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 12:05pm - 11 Comments

A new study has found that job seekers with English-sounding names got interviews 40 per cent more often than applicants with identical resumes and non-English names. The University of British Columbia study sent 6,000 mock resumes to Canadian employers with Chinese, Indian and Pakistani names as well as English names like “Jill Wilson,” to employers across 20 occupational categories in the Greater Toronto Area (Canada’s most multicultural city). All the resumes listed a bachelor’s degree and four to six years of experience, with name and domestic or foreign education and work experience randomly assigned. The researchers found that English applicants like “John Martin” got calls 40 per cent more often than applicants such as Sana Khan, or Lei Li, and suggest that Canadians and immigrants with non-English names face discrimination. They feel the study may help explain why skilled immigrants arriving under Canada’s point system with degrees and significant work experience fare poorly in the labour market.

University of British Columbia

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  • greengrift

    This is not surprising, nor particularly troubling. Hiring managers are simply using names as another filter.

    The manager can be reasonably sure that an applicant with an English sounding name is a native English speaker and can speak and write English fluently. This is particularly important if the job requires contact with clients. I suspect the language skills of job searchers with foreign names are often lacking.

    The researchers would be well advised to test this hypothesis. How do the language skills of applicants with Chinese, Indian and Pakistani names compare with those with English names? Only with this knowledge can the researchers credibly make the claim of discrimination.
    Of course, decades ago many immigrants to Canada anglicized their names upon arriving here. That strategy is still available and would signal to employers a commitment on their part to integrate into Canadian society and participate fully in Canadian life.

  • http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/html/act_loi_e.php Steph C

    Someone should try a study using French-sounding names and schools. Sadly, many Canadian Anglophones still see us as second-class citizens.

    • http://greengrift.wordpress.com greengrift

      Or conversely, conduct a study on anglophone names in Quebec. I lived in Quebec for 15 years, but was forced to move to Toronto a few years ago because I could find another job in Montreal.

      • http://greengrift.wordpress.com greengrift

        couldn’t find

  • Bernito

    I wonder if they would call somebody back named Barrack Hussein Obama. Yes I would like to see a study to see if in Quebec Francophones are biased in favour of French …I bet that is true as well. Outside of Quebec I would think the French are lumped in with the other minorities. Only the federal govenment makes a distinction.

    • pskn

      Tell me about this….I myself a Canadian Pakistani is correcting my colleagues written English that have English names :)

      • http://greengrift.wordpress.com greengrift

        LOL. With grammar like that, I rest my case.

        • psknn

          Yeah very true
          Now imagine the grammar of the ones with the English names…..

  • pskn

    And my wife is a Chinese Canadian with a Bachelorsdegree in English literature doing the same thing correcting the English of so called born and brought up English kids.

  • Angie Jones

    I had an instructor from India one time who'd told our class that his English was better than ours (American English) because he spoke "The King's English, or British English".

    It's an interesting world. :-)

  • http://www.CareerBranches.com Ilona Vanderwoude

    Very interesting article and research!

    Last year, I wrote a blog post on this very topic, wondering how job seekers deal with this issue. In this post, I also cited some earlier research done on this topic, and some tips on how to capitalize on your ethnic name. Here's the link in case someone's interested – we also had some interesting comments from readers: http://tinyurl.com/5qmras

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